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Are Strong Women Scary?

Bill Gates Sr. has an interesting review on Huffington Post of “Half the Sky,” in which he calls the book “stunning” but mostly ruminates on the strong women around him all his life. He suggests that too many men don’t appreciate the benefits of partnering with a strong woman. He writes:

When a man partners with a strong woman, everyone benefits…. What I find remarkable is that more men around the globe don’t realize how much stronger they would be if partnered with a strong woman. Way too often and in too many corners of the globe, women are denied the opportunity to reach their full potential. It’s wrong and it’s backward, and of course, the irony is that by keeping women down, men lose out too.

That’s a fair point, and I’m surprised by how often these issues are seen as battles of the sexes. It’s true that initially a microfinance program that targets women, for example, may be seen as threatening to village men. But once the men see that their wives are bringing home more money, it usually dawns on them that emancipating women brings certain practical advantages. In truth, if a country like Pakistan educated girls and ushered women into the formal labor force, men would be huge beneficiaries as well.

Read today’s story in the Santa Fe New Mexican about Ms. Ricky {Branch Ricky’s relative} who died homeless and broke at a young age in Santa Fe. She was a civil rights activist and important republican in Luisiania. Because of Katrina and an autoimmune disease she died early and broken in the richest country in the world. We were lucky she was born here, she was not.

Nick, There is truth in your point about how bringing home income increases the value of women in their own homes and they garner the respect of their husband and in-laws. At the same time, there’s something sad about it as well. It’s not like these women before starting their micro financed business were not providing their dues – taking care of their children and families. If put value on the work they do anyway, it would be more than what their husbands bring home. So it is sad that their value is only seen when they bring in actual cash. It is similar to women’s worth being measured in the amount of dowry they bring in. This is of course not to say that micro financing is wrong in any way, but this is something to think about. Now I’d feel better if the husbands get to watch the success of their wives from a distant and without benefiting from it. I know, it’s mean, but really I don’t see that the alternative is necessarily healthy.

But history demonstrates without a shadow of a doubt that the vast majority of men have almost always been disinclined to follow the advice of Mr. Gates and Mr. Kristof, with disastrous consequences for humanity.
Why disastrous? Because since writing began, what it has recorded vividly lays bare the fact that men are incapable of ruling without ruin.
No reasonable person could believe that if women had even as much as an equal say in how humanity would be governed–let alone the final say–there would exist the violence and brutality so dominant in today’s world.
And please keep in its case the old saw that, when given the chance to rule, women have been just as violent and brutal, because to even have an opportunity to rule women have to transform themselves into imitation men.
For instance, despite undeniable prejudice on a mass scale suffered by women throughout history, it is as rare as hen’s teeth that whenever given the opportunity to rule a woman has emphasized woman’s issues.
So, despite overwhelming evidence of how destructive male rule is, why does it persist? There is one reason and one reason only, even if just subconscious in more civilized nations: Men feel entitled to rule because of superior muscularity.

my parents were the best human beings on earth it is impossible to describe the parental security and happiness of being loved and appreciated as we experienced in youth, it was uncommon which is reason i have the highest respect for mothers, women who are driven and women who accomplish unsung success and assistance to their sons and daughters who pass on a birthright of good and right living….strong women are pillars of strength..

I found this post to be somewhat baffling. At first, I thought it was tongue-in-cheek and still hope that it is, especially since you are indeed “on the ground”

Being a young woman who has also worked in Africa on women’s issues, I sympathize with your goals. I sincerely hope your book becomes a global movement. But while the Western economic argument for “partnering with a strong woman” is practical, it often loses in countries ravaged by HIV/AIDS or war and steeped in tradition.

In purely economic terms, families with two (or more) breadwinners are the most stable units. But even in the U.S., there exists a countermovement, in which women choose not to work, fearing that women’s liberation has destroyed traditional values, religion and culture. This mentality often prevails in pockets of a wealthy country. It is even more difficult to convince poor, non-Western cultures that economic development will not destroy millennia of tradition. Indeed, leaders of poor states only have to note rising divorce rates and declining birth rates in the West to argue that “strong women are scary.”

Finally, your surprise that more men do not “partner with strong women” is almost comical. It is easy for men who have achieved professional success to marry strong women, but ask an unemployed autoworker in Middle America, or even an HIV-positive man in South Africa, if they question their masculinity daily. I guarantee those who have not risen to your level of success struggle with insecurities you and Mr. Gates, Sr. cannot fathom. To the impoverished, the economic argument often loses out to religious and cultural values that, rightly or wrongly, give meaning to those we hope to rescue.

Thanks for posting. Regrettably, it seems there is a strong economic incentive for men to diminish women. Women are easier to control if they do not recognize their own value. Governments and large corporations can more easily exploit women who are undervalued as a cheap source of labor.

Yes, but how do you explain to the men in Pakistan in a language they actually understand? With cultural stigmas about women so deeply embedded, that the idea of a girl going to school is more shocking than not. How to turn that sort of stereotypes around is the dilemma.

As well, in India – a recent New York Times article pointed out that especially urbanised women prefer sons over daughters because of their choice to limit the number of children. And that, the stereotype that governs the idea of having a boy is usually carried over from previous generations – no matter how well educated the mother is, or how much she earns.

The point here is that we need to target women to change their attitudes towards each other. It may be men that see the benefits of a woman’s economic independence but ultimately, the power to actually let another woman – a daughter, sister, friend – flourish lies with another one of her gender.

I’ve lived in plenty of places where women (and children) hold up more than half the sky.

I agree with KT…it’s one thing to be a position as a man that provides you with constant reassurance that you are a valuable, effective, and masculine person. However, if you are unemployed, diseased, and generally disenfranchised man you have no interest in partnering with a “strong woman,” because she might end up being stronger than you.

A very wise woman explained it to me as the “kick the dog” theory. A man is frustrated in his life. He comes home and beats his wife and he feels better, because he’s reestablished his place as the strong one. The wife beats her children, and she feels better for having exercised a bit of power over them. The children have no one to beat and so…they kick the dog.

It seems to me that a vast amount of money could be used for research and lowering drug costs if the drug companies were not allowed to advertise on television.
The effect of the tv messages is always that any problem can be solved by taking a pill, no wonder United States is the largest market for illicit and legal drugs in the world. What do these messages say to children and teenagers?
Before the drug companies start screaming, let them know that they could still advertise in magazines although, to tell the truth, I would rather they focus on diseminating information directly to doctors and pharmacists. As for research money, use the route these companies already take, government & university funds for labs across the country.

Strong women will always exist and frankly always have. It is those that would choose to be strong, if the environment to be so were “safe” that fail to maximize their gifts and talents because they are not encouraged to do so (by either the men in their lives or the women). Humanity has made remarkable in roads towards progressive acceptance of the differences between us – gender, cultural, racial. The ability to communicate around the world, to experience others on their terms and accept their differences without the need to control, force or fear will progress dramatically because the internet and global communication help us understand the mirror of ourselves in others. Humanity is a shared experience. Curiosity is innately human and a gift for progressive peoples everywhere. We have not arrived, we are still in the journey. But it is so much better than it has ever been.

My husband, a man with no need to dominate or feel superior to anyone, is proud of my accomplishments: “You are so capable.”
He jokes that “a working wife is worth two rent houses.” His earnings are several times what I make, and my income is helpful but not needed in our household. Nevertheless, he helps and encourages me and other women to succeed in our work.
How different from my former husband, who felt threatened by any minor accomplishment of mine.
A man of power is not threatened. A weak man is scared of his own shadow.

Bill Gates is right on the mark saying “way too often and in too many corners of the globe, women are denied the opportunity to reach their full potential. It’s wrong and it’s backward, and of course, the irony is that by keeping women down, men lose out too.”

It reminds me about a time in 2008, when it was wrong. There was a very strong woman running for the Democratic Party’s nomination for President of the United States. Also, she was and remains more experienced than her opponent who won the nomination and the national election for President.

Senator Hillary Rodman Clinton, was denied the opportunity to reach her full potential by the media, Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, Senators Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden, John Edwards and Chris Dodd.

Maybe there will be better days ahead for a strong woman in 2012. Michael Zullo, Upper Eastside, Manhattan

Its very sad that the author suggests women empowerment is all about how much money they can bring home and how the house hold profits out of it. Does this mean women who do not bring home money are completely useless. If women did not inherit the responsibilities of household (not their choice but something assumed they have to do) from generation to generation, they would have excelled in everything they do and be equally profitable if not more than their male counterparts.

Of course “strong women” are scarey, strong men are scarey too, if you define both the same way. If you differentiate your definition of strength based on gender, then you perpetuate the discrimination that I believe you wish to end.

Fear is the real culprit; extremism, intolerance and zealotry diminish all societies. The notion of rejecting or preventing contributions by half of the members of any community to the good of the whole is a recipe for anthropological disaster, totally unsustainable. Witness those societies that have sex-selected for the past generation or more and now face the consequences — natural selection will win — a society without female members will die.

It’s interesting to note that, among indigenous peoples and in “pioneer” societies, the strength of women is not distinct from that of men and is recognized as an absolute necessity for the success of the community. While members of these societies may perform specialized roles, their contributions are recognized as essential. This is not altruism but practical necessity.

I have come to believe that one of the best contributions to be made by women to help their sisters would be to contribute their money, political power, work on the ground, etc. to make sanctuaries and refuges for those women that wish to vote with their feet. I haven’t thought all the way through the details of such a plan yet, but I think such options would offer hope to the victims of repressive societies and form some very strong new communities.

It seems to me that any society that does not actively support the development of each individual to their fullest, most meaningful capacity is forgoing some collective benefit in order to pacify a minority. That women should be encouraged to be “strong,” i.e. support and contribute to their families and communities, seems quite obvious. So should men and children. I’m reminded of a microfinance site I recently visited which plainly stated that they only fund women because they found that funding the men was less successful. Maybe this is a consequence of the desperation that these women feel.

That this personal development and fulfillment is an ideal that we in the US have expressed since our early history is commendable. That this is best done by women in partnership with men is questionable. That this does not occur in many, many places in America and around the world is a sad, but undeniable truth.

What might motivate people to behave differently? Certainly economic benefit is one thing. However, a fundamental recognition of, and connection with the value of each person will produce a much more sincere and long lasting change. In my experience, it is through faith traditions that many people are able to arrive at this recognition and act from it, especially those faith traditions that embrace all beings equally.

Strong women are scary to many men because they know, subconsciously perhaps, that there is no equal for a strong woman and that braun is no match for superior intelect, problem solving abiities, organizationnal skills, and the most remote for many men… empathy. I am married to a strong woman and I would not have it any other way, and to the point made by Mr. Kristoff, I am definately a better person for it!

Sorry, but usually “religious and cultural values” are just a cover for insecurity. My own father, whose mother put in plenty of hours on the farm, strongly discouraged my mother from working or even claiming her inheritance because he feared she would use the money to leave. For his daughters, it was another story.

His own parents had refused to support his educational aspirations (AKA “getting above your raising”) and put down his sister for starting a new business with her husband because they couldn’t bear for any of their children to do better and thus make them feel bad. The American Dream of doing better than one’s parents is apparently a middle-class one.

I earn a decent salary, so I don’t have to put up with someone who can’t handle another person’s success in order to have a roof over my head or put food on my family. That is precisely what creeps like the gym shooter are afraid of. FTR, my husband is a sculptor whose work receives more critical acclaim than actual payment.

I don’t buy the argument that women fear that liberation has destroyed the traditional values {that have kept them down}; I think they’ve been successfully guilt-tripped into “putting children first,” as if that can only be a woman’s responsibility. The Mommy Track enforces the glass ceiling for professional-class women; lower-middle and working class women can’t afford to quit working, and in any case have never been any real threat to the established order.

Another side benefit to men is freeing them from the old framing. My husband didn’t have to spend 25 years in a job he loathed (and keel over from the stress) like my late father did in order to keep me out of the running in Jimmy Choos.

Re #6
But “questioning one’s masculinity” if one is not in a superior economic position to his partner, is exactly the problem. A family need not be viewed as a competition between partners, but as a collaboration. Brothers who can admire and benefit from one another’s strengths are both the better off for it. Likewise a couple who produce a talented and successful daughter are not diminished by her achievements. A man who can attract a strong productive woman is only to be congratulated. And of course that productivity can be home based for the child raising years, if they both so choose.
A strong woman will be better able to provide needed medicine to her husband’s elderly parents; she is more likely to insist on education for their children; she can continue to raise a successful family in her husband’s absence for whatever reason.
Bill Gates is exactly right on this one, and no, you don’t have to be a mega male to recognize that. A lot of families who are suffering through this downturn are only managing to stay afloat because of the wife. That ought to be enough to open anyone’s eyes.

My marriage crashed while living in China. I divorced while here, and set about searching for that idealized person, the good Chinese wife. She had to speak good English, be well educated, be of an internationalist bent of mind, and most of all, I demanded, “everyone must trust her”. Amazingly, I found such a paragon, we married two years ago, and she has proved to be what I did not know of, a strong, amusing, hardworking leader and “best friend” not just to me, but to the many many people (men and women)who phone her day in, day out, to ask for advice or just to catch up over years of not being in contact. I might have been in any country. She might have been any nationality. She has been a great inspiration to me, as well as to many many others. Of course, it is not enough to call her a “strong woman”. She is principled, funny, responsible, balanced, unpretentious, deeply loved & respected, and a clear thinker about everything

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About Nicholas Kristof

This blog expands on Nicholas Kristof’s twice-weekly columns, sharing thoughts that shape the writing but don’t always make it into the 800-word text. It’s also the place where readers make their voices heard.